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Army handbook ignored WMD

A Pentagon intelligence guide to Iraq that was distributed to American troops six months before last year??s war indicated that they faced little danger from chemical weapons.

Although it devotes 11 pages to poisonous snakes, spiders and plants, the 380-page manual spends just two pages warning soldiers of the possible peril from weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This is scarcely more than the section on noxious gases from burning oil installations.

A copy of the Iraq Country Handbook, marked ??for official use only??, was bought last week for ??5 by a Sunday Times reporter in a Baghdad market. The low priority it gives to WMDs will reopen the debate on American intelligence and its intentions before the war.

The manual??s publication date ?? September 2002 ?? suggests that the American military were making preparations to invade Iraq long before any debate at the United Nations. The lack of concern over